Univ. officials plan to use grad. fees to make housing more affordable

EDITOR'S NOTE: Due to a reporting error, the Sept. 19 story "Loh voices support for more affordable graduate housing" inaccurately stated how university President Wallace Loh plans to make undergraduate housing more affordable. This article sets the record straight.

Despite misconceptions about how the university will fund planned graduate student apartments slated to be built on East Campus, administrators said undergraduate housing fees will not go toward subsidizing the new graduate living quarters.

Currently, undergraduate on-campus housing fees go toward both the upkeep and operation of residence halls, as well as paying off debt the university accumulated building the dorms, University Vice President for Administrative Affairs Robert Specter said. Administrators hope to finance East Campus graduate housing in a similar way, he said — using graduate housing fees for the development's maintenance and toward lessening debt from the construction.

Last week, the Residence Hall Association condemned using undergraduate fees to subsidize graduate apartments to be built on East Campus — a 38-acre project that will include living space, as well as a town center with hotels, retail space and other similar amenities. RHA President Corie Stretton, who authored the bill that condemned using undergraduate fees, said reporting error in a quote from university President Wallace Loh in The Diamondback's article "Loh voices support for more affordable graduate housing" gave the organization the impression this option was a possibility.

Stretton said she has since spoken to administrators and now understands that is not the university's intention.

"Everyone is saying this is not a real option that administrators want to consider," Stretton said.

The funding in question was thought to be from fees undergraduate students pay to Capstone Management — the company that oversees South Campus Commons and Courtyards — for building maintenance and utilities, which Specter said was never the case.

However, Stretton said the shortage of graduate student housing needs to be addressed quickly, particularly because plans have been prolonged for East Campus.

"I think it's an excellent step, and I think it's a necessary step," Stretton said. "I think that we really need East Campus to develop — and develop quickly."

The proposed graduate housing would encompass about 335 beds in one- and two-bedroom apartments, Specter said, and construction would begin during the first phase of the East Campus development project slated to break ground in 2013.

Graduate housing on East Campus would be the first development of what Specter said he hopes is more university-sponsored graduate housing. He acknowledged there will still be a shortage of graduate student housing after East Campus is constructed; currently, about 1,000 of the university's 11,000 graduate students live in university-sponsored housing, Specter said.

"We're still in the preliminary design and discussions of what we would build," Specter said.

Currently, Graduate Hills and Graduate Gardens are the only university-owned housing options for graduate students. In addition to a lack of university-owned housing, high rent and living conditions have also concerned graduate students.

Although the minimum stipend level for graduate assistants has not risen in four years, the cost of living in a two-bedroom apartment in Graduate Hills or Graduate Gardens has risen 9.55% during the last three years, according to Graduate Student Government President Anna Bedford.

In both Graduate Hills and Graduate Gardens, residents pay $1,262 per month for two-bedroom, four-person apartments. But undergraduates who live in South Campus Commons currently pay $767 per month for four-bedroom, four-person units.

Housing is the largest expense for graduate students, Bedford said, noting most set aside at least half their monthly assistantship stipends for rent and utilities.

"Housing is a huge, huge issue," Bedford said. "If it's not safe, and it's not affordable and it's not warm, et cetera, you have a really low standard of living."

Government and politics doctoral candidate Blessing Okoroafor said her Graduate Gardens apartment is only affordable because she has a roommate, and rising housing costs will likely render it too expensive in the near future. She has also experienced problems with the quality of her apartment, she added.

"It's an older facility. There are some issues in terms of reliability of function," Okoroafor said. "Our water goes out quite often. It's not necessarily falling apart, but it's not aesthetically modern."

Bedford said graduate students might not want to attend the university because of the lack of available and affordable housing.